Algeria has not yet received any claim of responsibility from the kidnappers of two diplomats snatched near their mission in Baghdad, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said on Friday.

"As long as there are no claims of responsibility from those behind the kidnappings we have to wait. We don't know who is behind it," Foreign Ministry spokesman Abdelhamid Chebchoub told Reuters.

"But we're doing all possible to free our diplomats."

In the Iraqi capital on Thursday, eight gunmen grabbed mission chief Ali Belaroussi along with diplomatic attache Azzedine Belkadi, who took up his new post a few days earlier, he said.

"They had just left the embassy on their way to lunch when they were intercepted in their car some 60 meters from the embassy building," Chebchoub said.

"An embassy attache crossed his colleague's Toyota car in the street and then saw two cars pull up, gunmen get out of their vehicles and quickly snatched the two diplomats and put each of them in a car," he said.

Documents and mobile phones were left in the car of the diplomats, who were not accompanied by bodyguards.

Algeria's Foreign Ministry has set up a crisis unit to deal with the hostage situation.

Guerrilla strikes have driven diplomats from the Iraqi capital, undermining the U.S.-backed government's efforts to gain support among Arab countries.

Earlier this month Egyptian envoy Ihab el-Sherif was kidnapped by al Qaeda's Iraq wing, which later said it had killed him and vowed more attacks on diplomats in Baghdad.

The Egyptian had been expected to become the first Arab diplomat in Baghdad with the full title of ambassador since the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003, an important symbolic milestone.

Only days after he was kidnapped, gunmen fired on cars carrying the envoys of Pakistan and Bahrain, triggering an exodus of diplomats. Some embassies scaled back their operations over security fears.

Algerian authorities have expressed their shock at the kidnapping of their nationals.

"We deplore the kidnapping of diplomats accredited in Baghdad, all the more that Algeria has very good relations with the whole Iraqi people," Algeria's presidential representative Abdelaziz Belkhadem told state radio late on Thursday.

PHOTO CAPTION

Iraqi men are handcuffed during Operation Sunrise in Dyala province July 17 2005. (Reuters)